Bad Weather and Good Times

I’m not sure how it happened, but David and Bernadette seemed to have brought bad weather with them from Florida. It’s just that Florida didn’t have any bad weather to bring. Unfortunately, Provence is having a record cold and wet spring.
David and Bernadette were good sports about it and we did our best to enjoy everything we could even in the rain. And we did a good job!

In our last blog we shared about the dinner in Lorgues and meeting the owners of Bistrot Gourmand, Dany and Jean-Luc. They graciously invited us to their house, Bastide de Maurier, for tea. It was a delightful afternoon filled with attempted sentences in English and French, much gesturing and lots of laughter. They are delightful people and we look forward to seeing them again.

We introduced David and Bernadette to life around Cotignac including our daily trips to the bakery and the people who we see frequently – like Frank. Frank runs The hardware store in Cotignac. Mike estimates that it’s 325 square feet and filled with just about everything you could need. We go there almost daily for some thing or the other. We’ve had a couple of adventures with Frank. The first adventure was when we needed a variety of items including plastic gloves (gants plastiques) and garbage bags. Things were going well with me describing what we wanted until I got to garbage bags. That’s when I realized that I didn’t know how to say “garbage” in French. And so began the pantomime. Picture me and Mike trying to act out “garbage”. Frank finally joined the fun and acted with us. Between the three of us and lots of laughter we found the garbage bags (sac poubelle). The next visit we were looking for ant traps. But this time we were prepared. We had our iTouch which has French/English translation software. We walked into the hardware store with the word for “ant” (fourmi) already pulled up on the screen. Mike leaned over the counter and handed the iTouch to Frank and pointed to the word “forumi”. Frank looked at us quizzically and pointed to a stack of green boxes next to Mike’s arm on the counter. In 2” letters was the word “fourmi.” As my grandmother would have said, “If it’d been a snake, it’d bit me.” We had another good laugh with Frank. I think he’s looking forward to our next visit.


It so happened that there was a big boule tournament in Cotignac on Mother’s Day (their Mother’s Day is in late May, so Bernadette got the whole day for just her!). The rain let up enough for the tournament to go forward. We walked down to the Boulodrome to experience the festivities. Lucky, it was very carefully signed just in case we couldn’t find our way! The senior event was the prior day so we got to see the kids tournament. They were so cute. Boys and girls play together and they were very intent. It appeared that parents are the same everywhere as the area was roped off with signs that read, “Players only. Parents remain on the exterior.” The kids would cluster around with their teammates and point to where the next ball should land. It was impressive how accurately they could aim the balls. And, like sporting events everywhere, refreshments were for sale. They had sandwiches (sausage, ham, and beef hache – their version of a hamburger) all served on a baguette. There were fries (I had a container all to myself and they were excellent!) and fruit (no candy or chips), and, of course, wine. You could get a sausage sandwich, fries and glass of wine all for 4 Euros. What a bargain!


Mike created a wonderful meal for Bernadette on Mother’s Day, and we invited our leasing agent, Ruth, to join us. Ruth has lived in France for 19 years and was able to fill us in on good information about the area. For example, she explained about harvesting olives. One of my goals is to help with an olive harvest and, as it turns out, Ruth has olive trees! She explained that they are harvested in November at the time that the olive cooperative deems best. You pick them from the trees by hand and haul them to the cooperative in big baskets. They in turn provide freshly pressed olive oil. I can hardly wait! And, Mike’s dinner was a hit with everyone. He bought five caille which we later translated as quail. He stuffed them with oregano, garlic and lemon. We also had fresh asparagus (they are in season now and available at all the local markets) and potatoes and carrots with rosemary cut from the yard. We topped it off with some excellent rose wine from Bandol. It was fabulous – from the food to the company.

Not a bad way to spend a rainy day! And we managed to get a couple of days of sun which we took full advantage of. One of them was spent in St. Tropez and the other wine tasting in the Bandol area.

Our trip to St. Tropez was lovely. The sun was shining, the water was blue, and there was a Harley Davidson rally. There were beaucoup motorcycles in town with no shortage of black leather. There was one group of cyclists who were wearing biker jackets with red plaid kilts…hmmmm. We enjoyed walking around town and soaking up the sun. We even had a chance to eat lunch outside along the waterfront. It was delightful even with the periodic roar of a Harley passing by. One of the interesting attractions in St. Tropez is the public toilet. It’s a large silver cylinder in a parking lot. Coins are inserted, a door opens, you go in, do your thing, come out, door closes and the whole things goes into a wash cycle. You can hear the water swishing around inside so that the whole thing shakes, rattles and rolls. Once it finishes (and it seems to take forever when you really gotta go!), it allows more coins to be inserted and the process begins again. It was good entertainment.

Our other day trip was to the Bandol area along the coast near Marseilles. Bandol is known for the wines from that region. We set out that day armed with a French wine book and a hope for sun. We got both sun and excellent wines. Our first stop was at Domaine du Gros’ Nore. The woman at the shop was most helpful in explaining their award winning wines and helping us discern the flavors in the wine. (You can become reasonably good a faking it…”I think I’m getting hints of raspberry or is it dark cherry?”…worked every time.) Mike was great at asking questions that made us more knowledgeable about the vines and production. We’re surrounded by vineyards in Cotignac and have been watching as the vines begin to put out leaves. Many of the vineyards have blue tubes in the ground among the smaller vines. Thanks to Mike, we now know that the blue tubes are there to protect young vines from the rabbits. We hadn’t even seen any rabbits…except in the markets, and those rabbits weren’t going to bother any vines!

We tried to find the next vineyard on our list, but somehow missed it. As we were turning around we saw signs for Bunan. We took a chance and wound our way up a long narrow driveway to a beautiful spot on top of a hill overlooking rolling vineyards with a glimpse of the Mediterranean Sea just beyond. Lovely. Once again we were treated to rich descriptions of what the French call “terrior”. It means the character that the wine derives from the land. Bunan bottles two types of wine because the land is different and gives different flavors to the grapes. We had excellent wines there as well.

With all the wine tasting, it was time for lunch in Le Castellet. Le Castellet is a charming medieval village perched on top of a hill surrounded by vineyards. It was fun to wander around town browsing the shops and looking in the windows. Lunch was great and Bernadette had her first taste of rabbit. It was probably one of those that tried to eat a grape vine.

One thing about bad weather, it forces quiet time and reflection. I was able take my morning walks before the rain, as well as get in some writing time. The rain seemed to make the mornings even more quiet than usual. Heavy mist hung in the air and in the trees along the pathway to the Notre Dame sanctuary. That's become my favorite walk. It's peaceful and quiet. All you hear are the birds and the wind in the pine trees. We've been in France for almost five weeks and I'm beginning to realize that I've been carrying around more stress than I thought. I always congratulated myself on leaving work at the workplace, but as I settle into the quiet I appreciate that more stress came home with me than I thought. It's surprising, but I can feel layers falling away - from the commute, work pressures, the negativity from daily political events, and just keeping all the balls in the air that go along with managing life. It adds up. For now, I think I'll just enjoy each quiet moment and figure out how to add those things back into my life later. Yep....that's the plan.

Editorial note: Each time I write a blog, it is a challenge to find only a few photos to illustrate our experiences. This time, both Mike and David were taking photos so there are even more great pictures from which to choose. I can't fit them all into the text so I'm including a few of my favorites here so everyone can enjoy them.